


To Be Remade

by Adenil



Series: Undone/Remade [2]
Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (and for science), Avengers AU, Dealing with PTSD, Female Friendship, M/M, Male Friendship, let's take over the world for the betterment of mankind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adenil/pseuds/Adenil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of To Be Undone, the surviving members of The Avengers have gone their separate ways. Some are drawn back together, some are flying further apart. Each has demons as a result of Loki’s actions</p>
<p>Clint finally thinks he’s making headway with Tony Stark’s recovery. But when Stark gets an unexpected visit from a man who is supposed to be dead, all his work turns out to be for nothing. Meanwhile, Steve has found himself with only one man to lean on—the only one who truly understands what Loki has done to them. He may finally be pulling himself into the twenty-first century.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, rumors of the Winter Soldier and a strange company called Advanced Idea Mechanics abound.</p>
<p>And just why is Natasha trying so hard to get to Asgard?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_Three days after the ‘Battle of Manhattan’ (or as Clint liked to call it, ‘the Manhattan Cluster-Fuck’)_

Returning Loki to Asgard was a somber affair.

 

Clint had his sunglasses on to hide the dark circles under his eyes as he surveyed the assembled. Natasha was at his side, periodically checking her phone for texts from Coulson. He was still recovering, but couldn’t manage to stay out of their hair for more than a few minutes at a time.

 

Off in one corner were Jane and Thor, both clinging tightly to the other. Thor had his arms around her and was murmuring in her hair as she stood stiffly in his grip. Loki stood behind them, in a muzzle and handcuffs, rolling his eyes so hard that Clint was concerned they would pop out. Not that he would have cared, but it would have been a messy clean up.

 

Clint’s phone buzzed and he took it out, glancing down at Phil’s text.

 

_How’s Stark?_

 

Clint didn’t turn his head, only his eyes. Behind his glasses only Natasha would be able to tell he had even looked at all. He took stock of Stark standing beside the black SUV that he had rode in on. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he looked sick and wan. He didn’t seem to be looking at anything, not even the two SHIELD agents flanking him on either side. He had his own dark circles under his eyes, and his beard was unshaven and unkempt. He looked like he hadn’t slept since the battle, but then Clint suspected none of them had.

 

_looks ok_

 

Natasha leaned on the car beside him. “Cap’s a no show,” she muttered to him.

 

“There’s a rumor going around that Fury put him back in deep freeze.” Clint glanced over at her, but she was staring straight ahead. “But then, there’s another rumor that he and Fury eloped, so…”

 

She didn’t exactly smile, but she did relax minutely at his words. “My money’s on him and Phil as soon as he’s back on his feet.”

 

“He did have stars in his eyes when he saw him.” Clint very pointedly did not comment on why Coulson wasn’t on his feet, or the weird feeling that picturing Cap and Coulson gave him.

 

“Agent Romanov, could you assist me with this?” Selvig approached them with a small glass container.

 

Natasha sprang into action, and Clint watched as she held the container for Selvig. The older man carefully inserted the Tesseract in the center with shaking hands. Clint could see Natasha staring at the cube intensely, as if she could destroy it with her mind. Then she glanced over at Loki, and her glare intensified.

 

It didn’t take long for Selvig to position the cube in the device. Thor finally peeled himself away from Jane and accepted the cube. His face was drawn taut, and Clint could see that he was on the verge of saying something to all of them.

 

In the end, he said nothing.

 

Loki reached out as well and together they twisted the device, flashing out of existence in a burst of blue.

 

It all felt a little anti-climactic as the rest of the team stumbled around, uncertain of what to do next. Selvig and Jane loaded up in a SHIELD-issued van and left with only paltry goodbyes. Clint could see the two generic SHIELD operatives attempting to coax Stark back into their van, but he was frozen in place, staring at the spot where Thor and Loki had disappeared.

 

“Are you heading back to base?” Clint asked Natasha.

 

She shrugged. “Eventually.”

 

He glanced over at her and they shared a brief moment of communication. He didn’t have to say anything, but she nodded and returned to her car.

 

Clint shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled over to Stark and the agents. The more-junior agent glanced up at him as he approached, her eyes wide and bright at the sight of Hawkeye. “All right if I ride with you, Stark?”

 

Stark didn’t say anything. He didn’t even seem to register the question, but he allowed the agents to push him into the backseat. Clint crawled in on the other side. When Stark made no move to even buckle himself in, Clint did it for him.

 

“Mr. Stark,” said the senior agent. “We’re taking you back to Sitwell.” He glanced in the rearview mirror, but Stark still gave no indication that he’d heard. Eventually, the agent merely pulled away and they headed back to base.

 

Clint let the silence fall for a long moment as they drove. Buildings passed by in a blur, people milled around going about their daily lives. The battle had been all but swept aside over the past three days. Physical damage was already being repaired, although the emotional impact would take longer to fix. Clint knew well enough that most of the people on the street were only acting like everything was okay. It had been a near-apocalypse, after all. It was reasonable to be upset.

 

He glanced over at Stark, who was still staring straight ahead. If he was going to Sitwell, then they must assume his trauma was pretty awful. To Clint, that made sense. He wasn’t sure what was going on between Banner and Stark, but it was clear that they had cared deeply for each other. For Stark to see Banner’s death… Whatever was going on in the other man’s head must have been awful.

 

“Stark,” Clint said eventually, after the minutes had stretched on far too long. “There’s not really anything I can say right now, so I won’t even try to make you feel better. But I will say that if, in the future, you need to talk about it, I’ll be there. Okay?”

 

For a while, Clint thought that Stark was going to ignore him as he had ignored the rest of the proceedings. Then, slowly, thankfully, he turned to look at Clint with bright brown eyes. It looked like he was holding back tears—or had cried so long he had nothing left.

 

“Sure,” he said, and that was that.

 

*

 

_Three weeks after the Battle of Manhattan_

 

“Welcome to Level 8.”

 

Clint sat up from his slouch, blinking away surprise. Coulson smirked down at him. “Seriously?”

 

“Yes, Agent.” Coulson walked around his desk, moving a little stiffly from the back-brace he still wore. Clint could see the pain in his face, cleverly hidden behind layers of SHIELD training. Coulson handed him a thin file.

 

Clint took it, but didn’t open it yet. “What brought this on?”

 

Coulson leaned against the desk and gave Clint another little smile. “You don’t think you’ve earned it?”

 

“Hell yes I have.” Clint clutched the file protectively to his chest. “By why now?”

 

“Loki left us with a big mess to clean up.” Coulson crossed his arms over his chest, winced, and dropped them. “One of the biggest messes is named Tony Stark.”

 

“Ah.” Clint flipped open the file, finally, and looked into it. It was Stark’s file, filled with very little. From what SHIELD could tell he truly had come into being the week before the Battle of Manhattan, kidnapped Bruce Banner, and gallivanted around the world picking up straggler super heroes. There were a few photos taken from security cameras before Manhattan. Clint noted his ridiculous goatee with a wry grin, then flipped the page.

 

The next few pages were all about the post-battle. There were notes upon notes from Sitwell and SHIELD therapists attempting to reach Stark, to debrief him, to get him to say _something_.

 

All the notes were the same. _Stark unwilling to comply with SHIELD operatives._

 

“How am I supposed to clean him up?”

 

“We’ve had a SHIELD operative with Stark at all times since the portal closed. Someone has been there, at his side, willing to listen. Do you know how many words he’s said?”

 

Clint glanced up, unsure. He figured he wouldn’t like the answer.

 

“One.” Coulson held up one finger. “And that word was to you.”

 

“Christ.” Clint looked back down at the file. Everything in there showed that Stark was a man who had shut down, who had lost the will to keep going. But then, if what he’d said before Manhattan was true, he actually _had_ lost everything. Literally.

 

“Indeed.” Coulson pierced him with his cool gaze. “That’s where you come in, Agent Barton. Sitwell is passing the responsibility of being Stark’s handler on to you.”

 

“Me?” Clint looked up at Coulson, saw he wasn’t kidding, and shook his head. “No way. Not happening. I have no handler training!”

 

“Doesn’t matter.” Coulson shrugged and winced again. “You’re what we’ve got. You’re going to assimilate him to life in this universe, and you are going to get him to talk. You don’t have to be his therapist, just convince him to _go_ to one. You don’t have to be his friend. Just convince him to make some.”

 

Clint took a long, deep breath to mentally prepare himself. He didn’t really want to say _yes_. He wanted to say _knock me back down to Level 7 so I don’t have to deal with this crap_. Instead, he said, “Where is he?”

 

“Stark is currently living in the SHIELD barracks.”

 

“Okay, first off.” Clint held up his hand. “SHIELD barracks are horrible. If I’m his handler, I’m getting him an apartment at the very least.”

 

“We have a moderate budget that can go towards whatever you need.”

 

Clint sighed again and glanced back down at the file. He flipped through the meager pages again as if they might reveal something new. They revealed nothing he didn’t already know. He knew that Stark had lived an entire life—even knew that he had been a part of it, however briefly. But the Stark here and now had been ripped from that life, and seemed keen on letting himself waste away altogether.

 

“Fine,” he said. “When do I start?”

 

*

 

_Three months after the Battle of Manhattan_

 

“Tony, I got those taco things you like. They didn’t have any kale, so I just—”

 

Clint stopped. And stared.

 

He’d expected to find a near-comatose Tony Stark strung out on the couch, as he had every other day. Tony was finally starting to make progress, even responding to Clint’s questions with nods and head shakes. But he still slipped away into himself more often than not. Clint had begun to think that his first handler job was going to be an epic failure, with Tony dead by his own hand.

 

But here Tony was, pacing around the apartment and _smiling_.

 

“Clint!” Tony grinned wildly at him. “Great. You’re here. We’ll eat on the way. I need a jet.”

 

Clint had to struggle not to say anything stupid. He desperately wanted to shout _what the hell_ and _you’re talking_? It was so bizarre to see Tony moving that he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. Eventually he managed to open his mouth and say, “A jet?”

 

“Yes, a jet. We’re going to China. Cool? Cool.” Tony reached forward and plucked one of the take-out bags from Clint’s hands. “Aw, sweet, just how I like it. You’re a doll. Or whatever the male equivalent is. An action figure?” Tony was already slipping on his shoes and ripping open the container. He shoved a huge bite of taco into his mouth and spoke around it. “You look like an action figure, so let’s go with that. Arms the size of melons at any rate. Anyway, jet? Is it here yet?”

 

“Is—No. I can, I can get one but it might take a while.” Tony’s eyes drooped a little at his words, and Clint immediately backpedaled. “You know what? SHIELD needs to be kept on their toes. We’ll steal one.”

 

“Sweet. I knew you were the best, bird-brain.” He clapped Clint on the back and ate another bite of taco as he led Clint out of the apartment. “Stealing a jet is way better than asking. Better to beg forgiveness, yadda yadda, whatever. Fury’s probably due for another aneurysm.”

 

Clint laughed at that and pulled out his phone. He listened with half an ear as Tony talked. He texted Coulson.

 

_Stark talking, gonna steal a jet. explain later srry abt paperwork_

“Who are you talking to? Girlfriend? I get it. I understand. Your old buddy Tony Stark isn’t entertaining enough for you.”

 

“It’s not a girlfriend.” Clint rolled his eyes and put his phone away. “It’s just Coulson.”

 

“Agent Agent?” Tony laughed a little like it was an inside joke with himself. “Might as well be your girlfriend. Or mom, maybe.”

 

“Ugh, I hope not both of those at once.”

 

Tony’s eyes sparkled a little as he grinned at Clint. Clint smirked back and watched as Tony downed the rest of the tacos in quick succession. They made their way out of the tiny apartment complex and into Clint’s car.

 

Tony somehow managed to talk the _entire_ way to SHIELD base, then the _entire_ 20-hour flight to China. It seemed that he’d been saving his energy over the past few months. Almost all of what he said was complete gibberish, or nonsensical to the point of being ridiculous. A lot of it was filled with references that Clint half-understood were about the other universe—the one Stark had come from originally. Normally mention of the other universe was enough to get Tony to shut down completely, but today he seemed fine.

 

When they arrived in the tiny, bustling city, Tony made a bee-line for an internet café. Clint followed close behind with his hands in his pockets and watched as Tony hooked his phone up to one of the computers and downloaded something.

 

That was when he got a text from Natasha.

 

“Shit,” he muttered to himself, whipping out his phone. He stared at the text. It was clearly from Natasha, but that was impossible.

 

She’d been missing for over two months.

 

_How are you?_ it said.

 

_Nat where r u? u ok?_

 

_Where are you?_

 

Clint glanced around the tiny internet café, trying to play it cool. _…china?_

 

_I will see you soon. Don’t worry_.

 

Clint sent four more texts in quick succession, but got no response. He sighed, rubbing his hand through his hair, and figured that Natasha had turned off her phone. He forwarded their conversation to Coulson just in case, with a note for him to try and track her down.

 

“I’d like to go home now.”

 

Clint glanced up, a little taken aback by the suddenness of Tony’s turn around—had they _really_ just flown twenty hours to use an _internet café_? It was bizarre. He wanted to interrogate Tony about his reasoning, but it seemed that their delicate balance was slipping back towards the melancholy, and he couldn’t get Natasha’s texts out of his mind.

 

He decided the best solution was to fly back to the states as quickly as possible and hope Coulson had something for him when he got there. Tony said nothing to him on the flight back. He just sat and fiddled with his phone.

 

When they arrived back at Tony’s apartment, both travel-weary and on-edge, Clint had to ask. “Tony, are you all right?”

 

“Sure.”

 

Tony shut the door in his face. Clint stared at the wood for a moment until he could hear rustling behind the door and Tony muttering.

 

“ _I’m sorry I took so long. I’m back now_.”

 

*

 

_Five months, twenty-nine days after the Battle of Manhattan_

 

“Phil would like to go out for drinks tomorrow, if you’re up to it.”

 

Tony shrugged noncommittally, still staring out the window. He swirled his bourbon in his glass absently. Clint tried not to let it affect him.

 

“I think it would be good to get out.”

 

At this, Tony glanced back at him. “Will you give me a lab?”

 

Clint sighed and buried his face in his hands. “Tony, you ask this _every day_. I don’t have the authority to give you a lab. SHIELD’s budget for you already goes to keeping you fed and housed.”

 

“But Fury said—”

 

“He _said_ ,” Clint stressed. “That if you go in for mandatory counseling, he’ll give you your lab. And whatever equipment you need. If you want a private lab so bad, those are the conditions.”

 

Tony stared at him for a moment, and then his face screwed up in disgust. “How the hell do you manage being poor?”

 

“Uh.” Clint blinked. “Am I supposed to be insulted by that, or…?”

 

“No.” Tony waved the idea away. “It’s just… Fury won’t even let me get a _job_ , or become a fucking _person_ without consulting him. I can’t move two feet without you breathing down my neck, and now you and Agent are giving me the puppy dog eyes. I’m sick of it.”

 

“I’m sorry.” Clint slipped off the couch and moved to stand beside Tony at the window. He tried to catch his gaze, but Tony stared at the glass. “Look, Tony,” Clint said. “I’m not… I know I’m a fucking shit handler, all right? And I’m sorry. I was sort of hoping that…that maybe we could be friends instead?”

 

Tony stared out at the street below, sunlight reflecting in his eyes. “Friends.”

 

“Yeah.” Clint rushed a hand through his hair. “Maybe that’s what you need more than SHIELD bothering you all the time. I can talk to Fury and get you a different handler. Then we can just be…” He shrugged. “Buddies.”

 

Tony seemed to consider for a moment. His eyes traced the street below, falling here and there on the cars and people that passed by. Clint wondered if he was looking for Banner, still.

 

“Drinks, you said?”

 

“Yeah.” Clint smiled. “Tomorrow?”

 

“Sure.”

 

It was sort of their code-word for when Tony was done talking, and so Clint clapped him on the shoulder again. He moved to gather up his things—a few bits of paperwork here and there that he had brought for Tony to look at, a new proposal to get him in therapy, the plans to a weapon that Fury wanted Tony to look at but which Tony adamantly refused to even think about.

 

“I’ll see you then,” Clint said, and closed the door behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

_Three days after the ‘Battle of Manhattan’ (or as Steve liked to call it ‘The Day After I Died’)_

 

Flowers were probably not the proper ‘sorry I broke your ribs by punching you’ gift, but Steve didn’t have access to much else.

 

He purchased a bouquet of purple lilies from the SHIELD medical gift shop and held them awkwardly in his hands as he entered Coulson’s room. Coulson was propped up on a number of pillows, stiff-backed due to his brace. He was fiddling with an electronic device—someone had told Steve they were phones.

 

Steve knocked as he entered, and Coulson glanced up. He smiled pleasantly when he saw who it was.

 

“Please, come in Captain.”

 

“I hope I’m not bothering you.” Steve set the flowers down on the table, wishing he’d gotten something flashier. The table was literally covered in vases and flowers and cards, all for Phil Coulson. “I finally got out of debrief and I wanted to… apologize.” The word didn’t seem strong enough for how he was feeling, but he said it anyway.

 

Coulson gave him a wry look. “No apology necessary. I probably know more than anyone what you were going through.”

 

“Still.” Steve rushed a hand through his hair, unsure what to say. “It was my fault to begin with.”

 

“Mm,” Coulson hummed. He gazed at Steve for a long moment before gesturing at the chair beside the bed. “Please, have a seat. Let’s chat.”

 

“Of course.” Steve sat quickly, placing his elbows on his knees and folding his hands together eagerly. “Are you feeling all right?”

 

“Believe it or not, I’ve had much worse.” Coulson rested a hand over his ribs, hardly wincing as he did so. “You decided not to go to Thor’s sendoff.” It wasn’t a question.

 

“No.” Steve glanced down at his folded hands. “It didn’t feel quite right to be there after what I’d done. I don’t exactly belong here. There, with them I mean.”

 

Coulson was quiet long enough for Steve to grow restless and glance up. He saw Coulson fiddling with his phone again before eventually turning it for him. Steve could see an image on the screen. Jane Foster was clutched in the arms of Thor, looking stiff and unwieldy, but blessedly alive.

 

“This was just taken by Romanov,” Coulson explained. “Foster will be all right.”

 

A tension flowed out of Steve that he hadn’t realized was there. “Thank God.”

 

“Indeed.” Coulson took his phone back. “I’ve spoken to both Romanov and Barton as well. Barton is fine, Romanov is a little heady from her Loki experience, but it’s expected she will recover.”

 

“And Stark?” Steve glanced up at him, then away. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. “I... It was very hard on him when the portal closed.”

 

Coulson hummed again. “He’s been…quiet. If you’d like, I can arrange a time for you to meet with him.” He typed something into his phone.

 

The Captain America part of Steve wanted to agree whole-heartedly. He suspected that Stark could use a firm shoulder to cry on. Unfortunately, Steve didn’t believe that he could _present_ a firm shoulder. “I don’t think he’d want to see me. I’m the one who ordered the portal closed.”

 

“You made the right decision.”

 

Steve managed a smile. He understood intellectually that they’d had no other choice. But when Stark had simply fallen from the sky as the portal slammed shut, not even bothering to keep his blasters going, Steve had known that Stark would never forgive him. He’d seen the look on Stark’s face before, in his own mirror in the days after Bucky had fallen.

 

“Thank you for that, Agent.”

 

Coulson’s smile broadened a little. “Did Fury explain the SHIELD handler process?”

 

Steve frowned. “Ah, he did, yes.”

 

“I wanted to let you know I put in an application to be yours. You’re going to need someone to acclimate you to the twenty-first century.”

 

At that, Steve smiled. “I probably don’t get a say, but that sounds mighty fine,” he said, laying it on a little thick intentionally. “I’d prefer to work with someone I already know and trust.”

 

Coulson positively beamed at that. “Thank you, Captain. That means a lot to me.”

 

Steve pressed the palms of his hands together. “I should let you rest,” he said. “And I’m sorry again, Phil.”

 

“And again, don’t worry about it.” Coulson waved away his apology.

 

Steve could feel his warm eyes on him as he slipped out of the hospital room. He managed to keep himself upright and walking all the way down the hall and to his tiny barrack before collapsing. He pressed a fist to the weight in his chest, the place where Loki had touched him with the scepter and told himself over and over again, _I’m alive. I’m alive_.

 

*

 

_Three weeks after the Battle of Manhattan_

 

Someone was telling him to breathe.

 

He wanted to say _that’s not the problem_ , but maybe it was because there was no air in his lungs to speak with. His eyesight was black; he couldn’t feel his hands. Maybe he was shaking; maybe he was frozen again. The person’s voice in his ear was too much—too similar to Loki’s whisper telling him to _kill_.

 

Steve gasped in a lungful of air, each molecule of him starving and screaming for oxygen. There was the shocking press of hands on his arms, holding him fast to reality.

 

“It’s all right, Steve. I’m here. Deep breaths. Breathe with me.”

 

Who was it? Steve couldn’t tell. He couldn’t see because he was too busy staring at that blue cube turning Red Skull into the nighttime sky, too busy plunging into the ice, too busy fighting the man who had Howard Stark’s face, too busy grabbing Jane Foster’s neck and squeezing, _squeezing_.

 

He drew in another breath.

 

Vaguely, he could hear, feel, sense another person breathing. He clung to them, tried to breathe with them, tried desperately to pull himself out of the sinking blackness that threatened to overtake him.

 

“That’s good. Focus on me.”

 

Some tiny, broken part of his mind supplied that it was _Phil_ who was talking to him, and suddenly he saw his own fist connecting with the man. He saw blood from his lips, heard the sickening crack as he flew across the rooftop. He was touching Phil and he was _hurting him_. He was killing him again, in slow motion, ribs shattering under his super-powered fist and he was _supposed to be the good guy!_

 

He reeled back, ripping himself from Phil’s grasp. “No, get away. I’ll hurt you.”

 

“I’m fine, Steve.” Phil was there again, a light touch on his arm. “Everyone is fine. I’m not hurt. You didn’t hurt me. You’re having a panic attack.”

 

Strangely enough, that was the part that snapped Steve back into himself. Because Captain America didn’t _have_ panic attacks. He breathed in, mirroring Phil, and then breathed out. Slowly the black in front of his eyes faded. He could see again, barely.

 

He saw the steel wall of Phil’s office first. It was cold against the side of his face— _like ice!_ —no, no, just steel, not ice. He sucked in another breath.

 

With it came the smells of the office. Cold, impersonal. It was comforting not to sense the slick smell of mud and dirt, the acrid stench of death and dying, the cloying wetness of blood. But there, beneath it was the smell of gunpowder— _war, fighting!_ —no, no, it was only Phil.

 

Phil. He swiveled his gaze around. Phil gazed at him solemnly, warmly, and Steve let out the breath he had been holding. He took in another, breathing in time with Phil as his mind catalogued that the agent was still there, still alive. He hadn’t killed him. Phil was alive and breathing. It felt like Phil was breathing _for_ him, each tiny inhale and rise of his chest the only thing that kept Steve from falling back into inky blackness.

 

“Are you okay?” Phil asked as Steve’s hands began to stop shaking.

 

Steve drew in another breath, and let it out. “Yeah.”

 

*

 

_Three months after the Battle of Manhattan_

Phil sighed, shaking his head at his phone.

 

“What is it?” Steve glanced up from his sketchbook, rubbing charcoal from his fingertips. Phil was bent over his desk with paperwork strewn everywhere, his head in his hands. Steve had been sketching him for want of something else to do.

 

“Oh, Clint’s decided to steal a quinjet.”

 

“What?” Steve sat up on the couch. “Is he defecting?”

 

“Nothing as serious as that, I’m afraid.” He typed something into his phone, a gentle smile on his face. “Apparently Stark is finally talking and requires a jet to go…somewhere.”

 

Stark. It was strange, probably, that the first person Steve thought of when he heard that name was Howard. He remembered Howard’s smile, his ridiculous mustache, the manic look in his eyes as he presented his latest invention—his greatest invention, _Captain America._ It took him a moment to remember that Howard Stark was gone, long dead, and that Phil was talking about Tony.

 

“Oh,” he managed, burying his face in his sketchbook again. He concentrated on drawing Phil’s tie. He somehow couldn’t capture how straightly it hung. Phil was too put together to draw accurately in charcoal. He always looked messier than he really was.

 

He could feel Phil’s eyes on him. “How’s your reading list coming?”

 

“Oh, swell.” It was easy to fall back into his good-old-boy routine. “I’ve just about caught up to the 1970s. The sixties were…interesting.”

 

“All that free love?”

 

“That’s…part of it.”

 

Phil’s eyes crinkled a little at the corners. “You’ll get plenty more of that in the seventies. I’m interested to see your reaction to the eighties, though.” He laughed, going a little starry-eyed at the memory. “It was a hell of a time. My hair was—” He mimed a long hairstyle, down past his shoulders. “Well, it was called a ‘mullet’ and it was beautiful.”

 

Steve frowned at him, trying to reconcile the idea of long hair on the balding man in front of him. “I suppose I’ll see it when I get to it.”

 

Phil laughed and turned back to his paperwork. “Please let me be there when you do.”

 

Steve watched him dutifully fill out reams of paperwork for a while before turning back to his sketchbook. He abandoned his prim-and-proper portrait of Phil in favor of flipping to a new page. He quickly sketched out a rough outline of Phil in 60s beatnik clothes. He’s seen plenty of pictures. He shaded in dark black clothes, sunglasses, and a beret before trailing out long, straight hair over the imagined-Phil’s shoulders.

 

It was cathartic for him, and so he turned the page and drew another picture. This time, it was Bucky with long hair and a slight smile.

 

He drew Fury standing straight and tall in an army uniform. He chose one from his own time period, carefully etching in all the awards he assumed Fury would have won. The next page was a picture of Romanov in Asgardian battle armor. He modeled it after Thor’s, complete with a cape and chainmail sleeves. He drew Peggy in a baggy shirt with plastic beads around her neck. Then, a picture of Thor in a three-piece suit, followed by a picture of Barton in a leather jacket with his jeans rolled up mid-calf.

 

He turned to the next page and stared at it for a long moment before leaning in. He drew without thinking, thick black lines taking shape on the coarse white paper. He saw shapes. The curl of a lock of hair here, the bend of an elbow there, the corner of a smile, the line of a shoulder. This one took longer, two men together, and when he pulled back he was honestly a little surprised at what he’d drawn.

 

They weren’t in period clothes; they weren’t something other than themselves. It was as if he had transferred his memory directly to paper.

 

Bruce Banner, with shield-emitting bracers in hand, was bent over the arc reactor in Tony Stark’s chest. Banner was completely enthralled with the technology as he attached his bracers to the wires there. Stark was looking down at him with that strange look in his eyes—the one that Steve remembered thinking was the epitome of trust. Like Banner was the missing piece to Stark’s puzzle.

 

It hurt Steve to look at. He closed his sketchbook and leaned back on the couch, done for the day.

 

*

 

_Six months after the Battle of Manhattan_

 

Steve was with Phil when he got the call.

 

It was probably ironic. They had literally just been talking about Tony. Phil was explaining that it was high time they all got over themselves and just _talked_ to each other. He was in the middle of convincing Steve to go out for drinks with Phil, Clint, and Tony that evening when his phone rang.

 

Steve watched him answer it. “What is it now, Barton?” He had a little smile on his face that quickly fell as Clint spoke. He listened for a moment. “When did this happen? …who else have you told? Barton, you have to tell—” He paused. “No, all right. I’m on my way.”

 

He ended the call and slipped his phone into his pocket, piercing Steve with his gaze. Steve shifted uncomfortably as Phil considered him.

 

“All right,” Phil said after a moment. “You’re coming, too.”

 

That was how Steve found himself at Tony’s ramshackle apartment for the first time, and Tony wasn’t even there to greet them.

 

Clint was the one who ushered them in, looking a little harried as he did so. “There’s no sign of him leaving the building,” were the first words out of his mouth. He didn’t even comment on Steve’s presence.

 

Phil glanced around the apartment, his eyes falling on the handprint on the window, the broken glass against one wall, and the open drawer near the bar. “He didn’t take anything?”

 

“The clothes on his back,” Clint said. He looked freaked-out, but was hiding it well. If Steve hadn’t been spending so much time with the master Agent Phil Coulson, he doubted he would have noticed.

 

Phil bent to examine the broken glass. He ran a hand over a stain on the wall. “Bourbon,” he said. “He must have been drinking.”

 

“He’s always drinking.”

 

Steve took the opportunity to examine Tony’s apartment, feeling a bit like a voyeur as he did so. He stood still in the center of the living room and spun around, looking at how generic everything was. It wasn’t what he expected of Tony’s apartment. He’d expected tech and gadgetry that he didn’t understand in every corner, computers on the walls, maybe even a robot voice talking to him.

 

The apartment could have been anyone’s apartment. It was like Tony didn’t even live there.

 

He thought about mentioning that, but then a tiny burn mark on the carpet caught his eye. He knelt beside it. “Does Tony smoke?”

 

Clint was by him in a second, looking at the burn as well. “No way. I would have smelled it on him.”

 

Phil pulled out a tiny device. Steve recognized it as a portable scanner Phil had shown him during his briefing on SHIELD standard-issue field gear. He ran the device over the burn while pushing the buttons on the screen, frowning to himself.

 

“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said as he scanned. The device made a little ‘ping’ noise. “The residual radiation is through the roof here.” He scanned it again as if to confirm what the device was telling him.

 

“Radiation?” Clint leaned in. The three of them examined the burn. It looked like a tiny, spider-webbing lightning bolt had struck the carpet. “From what, though?”

 

“I’m not sure.” Phil pocketed his scanner again. “Clint, we need to call this in. I can’t keep this under wraps for you.”

 

Clint looked stricken for a moment before pulling himself together. “Just…just give me some time to find him, Sir.”

 

“Barton, he could have been taken for all you know. I don’t think he just went for a stroll to the grocery store.”

 

“I don’t think he was taken.” Clint straightened to look Phil in the eye. Steve glanced back and forth between the two of them, sensing that there was a second conversation going on beneath the verbal one. “His shoes are gone and there’s no sign of struggle. Wherever he went, he went willingly. I can completely believe that he messed with our cameras to get out of here.”

 

Phil stared back, their subtextual conversation growing and taking shape. Steve desperately wished he could listen in on it, but all he could do was watch as they communicated through body language and tense looks. Eventually, Phil relaxed perceptively.

 

“All right. One week, then I call it in.” He glanced at Steve. “Think you can keep it a secret?”

 

Steve shrugged, smiling. “Well, I might have to tell my handler.”

 

Phil smiled back. He started digging through his pockets, producing things that Steve had never noticed him carry. A second phone, which he handed to Clint along with a clip of money and a tiny earpiece. “Keep me apprised,” he ordered. “I’m going to get a head start on the inevitable paperwork.”

 

He started to leave, and Steve almost fell automatically into step behind him, but he paused. His sketchbook was suddenly heavy in his hands. He turned back to where Clint was pulling apart the camera on the wall and flipped open his sketchbook.

 

“Could you…give this to him? When you find him.” Steve carefully ripped out a page and folded it in half, then in quarters.

 

Clint looked at him a little oddly, but did accept the picture. He slipped it into his wallet without looking at it. He gave Steve a little off-hand salute as he left.

 

“Done?” Phil asked as he exited, shutting the door behind him. Steve gave a nod and Phil smirked. “Good, because I think it’s about time we expanded your reading list. How does a mission brief sound?”

 

Steve grinned at that. “Sounds pretty good, sir.”


End file.
